Beaver Township was once a part of Jefferson Township, Ross County. It was organized as a separate township in 1814 by the Ross County Commissioners and originally included all the territory from which Jackson, Seal, Union and Marion Townships were formed.

Jackson and Seal were taken from Beaver Township in 1815 when Pike County was formed. Union and Marion became separate townships in 1848.

Beaver Creek was named for the many beavers which once lived along its banks. The town of Beaver, or Beavertown as it was sometimes known, was laid out about 1840 by a man by the name of Reynolds and for a while was called Reynolds or Reynoldstown.

Many families came to the Beaver Creek Valley around the beginning of the 19th century. Most of the first settlers came from Virginia and Pennsylvania with a few from North Carolina. Among the first were Abraham LAWRENCE, who settled on what later became GIVENS farm, and Rev. Darley KELLY who built his cabin along Beaver Creek.

George GIVENS came in 1807 and the Adam BUTCHERS about the same time. William SAYLOR arrived in 1810 and John JAMES brought his family around 1812. Other early family names were BROWN, BEAUCHAMP, CRABTREE, GALFORD and KIRKPATRICK.

Michael GALL, who came from Maryland in 1833, gave some interesting background about his family in an interview, published in the Republican Herald in the 1870's (along with other interviews, available in (Old Timer's Inteviews a publication available from the Genealogy Society).

Judges listed for 1816 were Jeremiah SAILOR,Abraham HUFF and Henry SLAVENS. Clerks were Jeremiah RICE and James KELLY.

In 1817, Reuben BUMGARNER and Peter RHINELEY were listed as house appraisers.

Some of the earliest settlers in the Beaver Valley were of German descent. Their forebears settled in Virginia in the 1700ís with the early German settlement, there, and others became Americans by way of the Revolutionary War. Adam BUTCHER reportedly was a Hussein soldier who decided not to return to Germany.

Other early German descendants were Jacob BUMGARNER, who came from Virginia in 1805, Henry SHOCK, who was born in Virginia and came to the Ohio country in 1816, and Noah RADER who was born in Virginia in 1766.

Beginning in the 1830ís, many other German immigrants came to make their homes in Pike County. Some came by way of the newly opened

Ohio & Erie Canal.

Many of these immigrants settled in Beaver Township. Among them were HAMMANS (Philip HAMMAN was born in Germany in 1815 and came to Pike County in 1834), ROTHMEYERS, BRUSTS, HAMMERSTEINS, ADAMS (Barnhardt ADAMS also came in 1834) and SCHILLING.

In the 1880 census of Pike County, 606 were listed as being born in some section of Germany. Many of the descendants of these industrious, hard-working people still make their homes in Beaver Township.